Seminar: Harriet Tenenbaum – Exclusion among children

How do children understand exclusion in socio-cultural contexts?

Children’s negotiation of their understanding of peer and institutional exclusion occur within a socio-cultural context. In this talk, I will attempt to integrate Social Reasoning Developmental theory (Killen & Rutland, 2011) with socio-cultural theories (Vygotsky, 1978; Rogoff, 1990). To do this, I will discuss research on children’s understanding of exclusion in Denmark, the UK, and Saudi Arabia.  The finding indicate that children do not generally accept exclusion. However, in societies that have more societal segregation, children are more accepting of exclusion in societal contexts that in peer contexts (UK) and when the perpetrator is a figure of authority than a peer group (UK and Saudi Arabia). In more multicultural societies, children are less accepting of exclusion than in less multicultural societies. The findings point to ways in children appropriate judgments and reasoning from their socio-cultural milieu.

Dr. Harriet Tenenbaum is a reader in Developmental Psychology at the University of Surrey. She did a Ph.D. at the University of California at Santa Cruz (USA), studying the socialization of gender inequities via parent-child conversations. Harriet’s research focuses on what children (can) learn from everyday social interactions, and particularly on their understanding of emotion and science, and social issues such as discrimination and rights.